Cause Marketing: With a Cause, or Just BeCause?
It strikes me when thinking about cause marketing — when a for-profit company undertakes a campaign to support some kind of social cause — that it is best understood in the context of the broader issue of business and social impact. This is an issue that has gets talked about in a lot of different ways — some of the buzzwords that have become popular in the past 10 years or so include corporate social responsibility (CSR), shared value, impact investing, corporate sustainability, and business at “the bottom of the pyramid.”
When considering whether to take on a cause marketing initiative, brands should consider why exactly they are doing it. Once the why is clear, they can focus on what type of initiative to undertake, and then figure out how to pull it off.
Companies tend to use cause marketing in four different ways, depending on two things (which, as a once-and-future consultant, I cannot resist turning into a 2x2 matrix).
- How relevant is the cause to the brand’s business?
- How immediate is the social impact that results from the cause marketing?
Good Citizen Cause Marketing is what I call cause marketing that is not directly relevant to the brand’s core strengths or growth strategy, nor does it have an immediate social impact. It usually centered around general philanthropic work, highlighting donations and/or volunteer work and emphasizing a brand’s desire to “give back” to the community. I would say it is the most popular type of cause marketing, partly because it is the easiest — it can be as simple as sponsoring a local school. This is the typical example of cause marketing — most cause marketing campaigns fall into this category.
Heroic Cause Marketing tends to differ from the “Good Citizen” variety in that it tends to be a response to an immediate and acute cause — a humanitarian crisis or an ideological cause that is at a crucial tipping point. Because of this, the impact can be more direct and immediate than more general philanthropy, especially when it utilizes a company’s core competencies. A classic example was Walmart and FedEx utilizing their logistical expertise to support the victims of Hurricane Katrina. However, these types of campaigns tend to be pretty short-term in focus, and usually do not serve to drive long-term social change nor produce business results beyond good will.
A recent example of this was Uber utilizing its drivers in the UK as part of a drive to collect and move clothing for Syrian refugees in Fall of 2015.
Issues-Driven Cause Marketing tends to take a longer term view on issues that are deeply relevant to the company, but may not have the clear or immediate impact on the actual social issue. They tend to be focused on either raising awareness of the issue or subtly improving the business and social ecosystem. Examples might be IBM contributing technology to support local education initiatives or Citibank positioning itself as a thought leader on global financial literacy programs for the poor as a complement to the booming microfinance industry.
Finally, Strategic Cause Marketing takes advantage of promoting something that is directly related to growing the overall business, as well as demonstrating clear social results. This is where social impact and business strategy truly meet — in the words of Michael Porter, “the success
of the company and the success of the community become mutually reinforcing.”
A great recent example of this kind of cause marketing is Dick’s Sporting Goods “Sports Matters” campaign, which features heartwarming stories of the large sporting goods retailer supporting local sports youth programs around the country teams and thereby building brand loyalty among future customers.
Of course, this can be hard to pull off. What makes Dick’s Sporting Goods work is that it is:
- Authentic but not exploitative — the connection to the business and the brand is clear, and there are obvious business benefits, but they manage to do this without being “causejackers” or otherwise exploiting the situation. The “win-win” seems genuine.
- Fairly transparent. They don’t get into specifics, but there is a clear business purpose as well as a clear social benefit.
- Well branded. Dick’s Sporting Goods brand is present but is secondary to the schools / teams that they fund — their brand gets out there without being over the top.
- Well publicized. The YouTube videos get good views, and they have also gotten a lot of positive press, including a “Halo” award for the campaign.
- Repeatable. They are able to replicate the campaign in multiple places and in multiple ways. Thus they are taking a longer term view to growing the business and the brand, rather than focusing on short-term one-off wins.
